A very interesting and unusual programme from the Halle drew me out tonight, in spite of a lingering late winter cold. The combination of a conductor making his Halle debut, a soloist with whom I wasn’t familiar and the presence of Nielsen’s rarely-performed (in Britain) Fifth Symphony on the bill made for a potentially fascinating evening.
And so it, mostly, proved. Johannes Debus has been in charge of the Canadian Opera Company for the last decade, so this represented an opportunity to hear him outside his main area of endeavour. The programme began with Brahms’ Haydn Variations (or Variations on the St. Antony Chorale, if you’re inclined to be pedantic), a work that often struggles to find its place in the repertoire because it’s a shade too weighty to be a suitable overture item yet too slight to feature further down the programme. Still, as it’s one of my favourite works by this composer, I was glad to hear it: Debus’ may have deliberately chosen to emphasise its lighter aspects at the expense of its darker sororities for this performance but that was entirely in keeping with the spirit of a work that seems to incarnate sanity and optimism, things in very short supply given the day’s headlines.
Debus and the orchestra were joined by another Halle debutant, Russian pianist Pavel Kolesnikov for Mozart’s 22nd Piano Concerto. Winner of the 2012 Honens Prize, Kolesknikov has won golden opinions and five-star reviews for his international appearances, so one almost felt obliged to be impressed before he had struck a note on the keyboard. Certainly, he has a formidable technique and an individual tone which go some way to off-setting a rather cool, not to say phlegmatic, stage presence - on this evidence, he is the polar opposite of his countryman Daniil Trifonov. The performance was, accordingly, high on technical expertise if a little light on drama - but that is perfectly valid, given that this is one of Mozart’s sunniest concerto works, as much a showcase for an orchestra to display its adroitness in accompaniment as for the virtuosity of the soloist. Kolesnikov treated us to two impressive cadenzas, wrapping up a nicely-paced rendition.
Any concerns that we might be in for a similarly middleweight reading of the Nielsen Fifth Symphony were quickly dispelled by the weight given to the initial thematic material on the bassoons. An intensely serious work, held by some to be the greatest symphony of the twentieth century, it has no programme as such but has attracted a welter of interpretations, nevertheless. Nielsen himself likened it to the age-old battle between Good and Evil, others have heard in it the war between contrasting temperaments. What everyone seems to agree is that its work of harsh, dissonant contrasts, encompassing a world of moods and variety in its two movements. Perhaps its most memorable feature is the obligato part for the side-drum, which periodically attempts to derail the entire symphony. Cast in the role of antagonist, the Halle percussion excelled in the choppy climaxes of the first movement and Debus brought the symphony to an unexpectedly rhapsodic conclusion after 35 drama-filled minutes.
An excellent evening all round then, with the added pleasure of a pre-concert performance (by the strings of the Halle Youth Orchestra) of Nielsen’s first completed work, the Suite For String Orchestra.
Reviewer - Richard Ely
on - 21/3/19
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